Curexxogi

—♪ Le Sketch (Satsuki)

I didn't even have a plan who to draw until I thought of Satsuki after getting the anatomy.

If you notice, this sketch of Satsuki isn't smiling (yet).

After finishing the sketch, I immediately thought of J.

—♪ Base color (Satsuki)

I put colors under the sketch

I was very afraid of messing up the colors for clothes, it was recolored a few times before I went with this

—♪ Setting The Mood (Satsuki)

For my art style, I'd say getting to tone/mood down is the most important step. (This step has lot of different combinations and blending modes)

Mood always affects storytelling in a scene.

I always have a lot of choices of what I want to go with, it can help with having the chances of getting the best draft (you can't have only 1 draft and say it's the absolute best!)

Experimentation is the best, try using different hues for the shadow!

—♪ Final Choice For Mood (Satsuki)

The final choice for the mood is a two Easy Burn layers, both with completely different tones combined. (Image 3 and 4 - bottom row)

The final choice was Image 1, it felt more intimate and secluded. As if the person looking from this POV (J) is being invited into her world by her outstretched hand.

—♪ Render (Satsuki)

Having a separate layer, i amplified the piece by color picking from all the layers below combined. Think of it like painting traditionally.

I figured that the warm color for the sketch lines that are still visible here (on her torso and hand), balances out the warmness on her face. Similar to underpainting.

—♪ Final Touches (Satsuki)

I simply added more different blending modes on top of the rendered piece.

I added some blurry-ness to add more 'bloom' to the piece, make it look more romantic (for the ship art)

If you look closely on the finished piece (right image) you can notice the paint hues of pink 'lingering' in the bg. I used sfumato to bridge the gap between the warmness of her face and the coldness of the color palette in her dress and bg.

—♪ Le Sketch (J)

At first, before drawing Satsuki, I had a sketch for my OC as an experiment for drawing more complex angles. But I scrapped the idea.

Then, when I sketched Satsuki and thought of J, an idea of repurposing the sketch popped into my head. I haven't add hair nor clothes yet, so this was a perfect base. It only needed Satsuki's hand.

You'll notice that the lines on the head in the left photo is the direction the hair was originally going to be in! And also the fact that the subject wasn't gonna smirk, too.

—♪ Base color (J)

I simply added the colors under the sketch.

And for the fur thing on his shoulder, i tried to control the values while grouping them together so I won't confuse the anatomy of his hand.

It took me some time to figure out what the hand would look like, since while Satsuki is facing directly to J, he's standing at the side. So we would see a 3/4 view of his hand.

Since they're holding each other's right hand, J's thumb would be under the back of Satsuki's palm.

—♪ Setting The Mood (J)

For his piece, setting the mood was very easy because I already did the heavy lifting with Satsuki by experimenting (Keep in mind, I first did the sketch of Satsuki, then sketched J, then base color of Satsuki, switching between these two pieces)

The thing I always had to consider was the values overall, the dash of white on his chin piece might be stealing the focus from his face.

His glove is black, but I made it gray to make the interaction stand out a little bit. (because it is the star of the show!)

—♪ Render (J)

There might not be that much change, but the devil's in the details. (Folks can tell how much you care for the art with them)

The sfumato is also in the bg! it serves the same purpose here, to bridge the gap between the warmness on J's face and the red in his hair to the coldness of the bg.

I added bounce light that came from Satsuki's hand. Like Satsuki's vibe (and maybe love for J) is radiating off of her.

The bg for him seems darker to fit him a better.

The ray of light behind him to let the viewer know 'where' he is in a sense. (Since Satsuki's piece used the floor and the light filtering from it, we can guess where the light is coming from. As J's standing beside Satsuki with his back facing the light source, thus the ray of light)

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Creator's Note : Thank you for reading up to this point! Any questions about me as an artist (influences, journey, etc.) or technical stuff is always welcome. My inbox is open!